Clemency

Composer • Improviser • Theorist

Music philosopher, humor theorist, burgeoning Street Fighter player and wannabe Dad. Seeking harmony.

YouTube: www.youtube.com/@clementcomposer
Mastodon: www.zirk.us/@clemency


Emmanuel Clement - 2024.04.10 practice
2024.04.10 practice
Emmanuel Clement
00:00

Do you have a habit of not finishing things? Put out a good partial sketch of something, then lose momentum / interest as the prospect of finishing is too daunting? Yeah, me too. But I'll bet in all your dreams of artistic mastery, the things you make are finished. So that's really the first criteria of a successful piece. And guess what? Finishing things is a skill that takes practice, alongside the skills of actually making things.

So even though I wasn't really satisfied with the initial (improvised) sketch last week, I committed to finishing it out no matter what. Barf! What an ordeal! I wanted to scrap this thing the whole way. But I kept showing up in the studio and solving problems instead of walking away from them, and the final result is something finished. Is it 'good?' Lol, lmao. I literally no longer care. Whatever it is, it's this, and it's done, and I'm free to make something better now.


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in reply to @Clemency's post:

When I was in gradeschool my homeschool coop art teacher would often assert that there's no such thing as a finished art piece--that there's always something to refine. I'm not sure I agree with the base statement, but I do think about it often--what makes a piece finished? When am I content to let it lie and how do I know something isn't polished enough to be done? I don't think I know still!! But you're right: getting it over that line, wherever it is, is a skill. And so is returning to something again and again to push it over, especially when it felt like hitting that point was impossible or not worth it! Hard to develop, I think, but definitely worth taking the time to. I like where this one went!!